Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Cohesion, clarity, stability

In addition
tocriteria such as transitivity, independence
of irrelevant alternatives and neutrality that are desirable for voting rules
according to Kenneth Arrow, one could think of other criteria that are
especially applicable to sovereignty referendums such as the Brexit one. These
criteria could be those of cohesion, clarity and stability.Cohesion.
A
yes/no self-determination referendum can be a cause of great division in
internally diverse societies. Taking
the Quebec referendum of 1995, the Scottish referendum of 2014 and the Brexit
of 2016 as examples, all produced a very close result: it seems that these
referendums with two options tend to divide the electorate into two halves and
produce very
crisp and emotional campaigns. The
winning option defines a model of society for which almost half of the
population has explicitly voted against. In
what situation this immense minority remains in terms of risk of discrimination
and discomfort, should be a cause for concern.Stability.
Several
observers have pointed out the risk of contagion or domino effect, both
internal and external. Some
might argue that this should not be a problem, since holding more referendums
can only be even more democratic. However,
it is difficult to find advocates of the secession of a territory that admit
the right to become independent of important parts of this territory. The
existence of waves of independence and referendum processes suggests that there
are imitation effects, which can alert leaders of powerful powers on the
international scene, even when some referendum might be desirable to address a
serious problem of coexistence or human
rights. Partitions and reunifications are not like playing with lego blocks,
and have consequences for long term investments made by ordinary individuals and
families (personal bonds, labour contracts, social security, homes, professional degrees…).Clarity.
Following
the last referendum in Quebec in 1995, the Supreme Court of Canada asserted
that it was necessary to take into account the principle that the options
presented to the electorate should be clear and avoid confusion, and that the
consequences of whatever
is decided must be clear and what is decided must also be approved by a clear
majority. The
Clarity Act subsequently approved by Parliament applied these principles to the
specific case of Canada. Note
that there is some conflict between posing a clear question and presenting
clearly the consequences of what is approved. Making
a referendum with two or even three or more discrete options on something that
is actually a continuum (the degree of sovereignty) and that does not depend
only on the electoral body can induce a sense of "false clarity." There
is a risk of "approving" something that is actually pending
negotiation.The
solution is not simply to increase a number of seemingly simple options to
three or more, because then the question still gives the false impression of
simplicity (it would have been difficult to know exactly what devolution maxin Scotland meant without a detailed prior
agreement).By
expanding the number of "reasonable criteria" we also increase the number of trade-offs that are typical of social choice. For
example, it is difficult to achieve clarity without undermining cohesion. After
all, a brief and dichotomous question is very clear, but it facilitates
polarization in two opposing blocks, and if we look at the British case, it does
not seem to have led to stability.